She went up on the platform, and faced the roomful of children.
"Dear boys and girls," she began, "I have had some papers sent me
from Boston, giving some facts about the killing of our birds, and I
want to state a few of them to you: You all know that nearly every
tree and plant that grows swarms with insect life, and that they
couldn't grow if the birds didn't eat the insects that would devour
their foliage. All day long, the little beaks of the birds are busy.
The dear little rose-breasted gross-beak carefully examines the
potato plants, and picks off the beetles, the martins destroy weevil,
the quail and grouse family eats the chinchbug, the woodpeckers
dig the worms from the trees, and many other birds eat the flies
and gnats and mosquitoes that torment us so. No flying or crawling
creature escapes their sharp little eyes. A great Frenchman says
that if it weren't for the birds human beings would perish from the
face of the earth. They are doing all this for us, and how are we
rewarding them? All over America they are hunted and killed. Five
million birds must be caught every year for American women to
wear in their hats and bonnets. Just think of it, girls. Isn't it
dreadful? Five million innocent, hard-working, beautiful birds
killed, that thoughtless girls and women may ornament themselves
with their little dead bodies. One million bobolinks have been
killed in one month near Philadelphia. Seventy song-birds were
sent from one Long Island village to New York milliners.

"In Florida, cruel men shoot the mother bird. on their nests while
they are rearing their young. because their plumage is prettiest at
that time. The little ones cry pitifully, and starve to death. Every
bird of the rarer kinds that is killed, such as humming birds,
orioles and kingfishers, means the death of several others that is,
the young that starve to death, the wounded that fly away to die,